Mass spectra and Regge trajectories of light mesons in the Bethe-Salpeter approach

Abstract

We extend the calculation of relativistic bound-states of a fermion anti-fermion pair in the Bethe-Salpeter formalism to the case of total angular momentum $J=3$. Together with results for $J\le 2$ this allows for the investigation of Regge trajectories in this approach. We exemplify such a study for ground and excited states of light unflavored mesons as well as strange mesons within the rainbow-ladder approximation. For the $\rho$- and $\varphi$-meson we find a linear Regge trajectory within numerical accuracy. Discrepancies with experiment in other channels highlight the need to go beyond rainbow-ladder and to consider effects such as state mixing and more sophisticated quark-antiquark interaction kernels.

Comments: 11 pages, 8 figures, 2 tables. Minor typos corrected; accepted in EPJA